Education Minister Announces JEE Main, NEET Dates

Joint Entrance Examination or JEE Main, screening cum eligibility test held for engineering and IIT admissions for graduate level courses, will be held in July while the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test or NEET, the national level single window medical entrance examination, will also be held in July. The Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' said in an interaction with the students that the JEE Main examination will be held from July 18 to July 23 while the NEET examination will be conducted on July 26. The minister also said a decision regarding pending CBSE board exams will be announced soon.

Both JEE Main and NEET examinations were scheduled in April and May respectively, however, to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the country, the National Testing Agency or NTA, the officiating national body working under the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry had postponed the exams in March last week.

Later, the Agency had fixed May last week (tentatively) to conduct both JEE Main and NEE examinations, but, because of the increase in COVID-19 cases and subsequent lockdown extension, the exams have now been postponed to July month.

The JEE Advanced (also known as IIT entrance) exam, which is being held for IIT undergraduate admissions, will be held in August. 

"JEE-Mains will be held from July 18-23, while JEE-Advanced will be held in August. NEET will be conducted on July 26," Mr Nishank said. 

"A decision will soon be taken on the pending CBSE Class 10, 12 board exams," he added. 

More than 15 lakh students across the country have registered for NEET this year, whereas more than nine lakh have registered for JEE Main, the entrance exam for all engineering colleges except the IITs. 

The NTA had also given students an option to change their opted centres for the two tests as many of them have moved to different places since the lockdown. 

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16, when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. Later, a nationwide lockdown was announced from March 25 which will last till May 17.

(With PTI inputs)

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